4 Jul
2005
4 Jul
'05
5:09 p.m.
Not me yet... more interested in their SASI controller
at this stage to
be honest as I really need a way of getting the 380Z fileserver backed
up!
What about hacking around with the Acorn SASI controller, e.g. the one in
your ACW? I assume you have schematics, etc for that.
Actually,
info on the various PAL chips would be handy; RML didn't half
THere were no PALs in the original set of boards (CPU, VDU, hi-res, disk,
etc). WHat there were -- and were to excess -- were small bipolar PROMs.
Those were often colour-coded. "COS checks to see if there is a VDU plugged into
the SIO-4 socket. If
What does it look for? One of the handshake lines being asseted?
there is, all subsequent output via the scroller
output EMTs is sent to
this VDU. Graphical output, such as the front panel, or low or high
resolution graphics, still appear on the RML screen. If a character is
Argh!. While twin monitor setups are useful in some cases, this sounds
like something of a kludge.
received from the VDU at 9600 baud, COS also switches
the keyboard EMTs
to take all subsequent input from the VDU ignoring the RML keyboard."
So it should work with an SIO-4 (or presumably 4C). Indeed, we've
actually got some Cifer terminals doing nothing which have nice black
keyboards very similar in looks to the 380Z ones...
The text implies that it's not possible to have a terminal as input-only
though; it'll always redirect text output if a terminal's present. How
much RML software actually uses the COS routines is another matter -
The EMTs (one of the Z80 RSTs followed by a function code byte) are
certainly used in the CP/M CBIOS. I suspect a lot of software uses them.
there must be at least some bits and pieces out there
that talk to the
keyboard / display directly rather than through COS, and those then
wouldn't work...
Anything doing graphics, for a start...
Personally, I'd try to use the RML's video card for everything, which
means kludging up a keyboard. It can't be that hard, the interface is as
simple as it gets.
Heh, I know what you mean! In the case of RML stuff I
like to try and
keep track of who has what anyway as it's reasonably uncommon stuff.
By my standards they're fairly common....
-tony